Re: [Phys-l] Microwave door. Was: Re: About the "why" and "how" questions.

[Moses Fayngold <moshfarlan@yahoo.com>]

 On Sat, Dec. 25, 2010, at 12:10 AM, Bernard Cleyet wrote: 

> What toxic output?
> I'm quite disappointed -- except for e. feed thrus, all the magnetrons I've seen 
> are metal.   What a shame; your chance to add experimental physicist to >you 
> personality and your "friend" "blew it".  
>
> bc does have a magnetron w/ ceramic containing Be.  Unlikely in a domestic one.
> p.s. Was the door glass?



  My colleague suggested that it might be Scandium, but then I found in Google 
that, more likely, it was beryllium oxide, forming fine dust that could be 
harmful when inhaled, and carcinogenic at long exposure to it. So the Be 
component may be the answer to one of your questions. The magnetron is indeed, 
metallic - inconsistent with the scale of explosion that I observed. It looks 
like the hypothesis of strain/stress gradually building up in the oven door 
remains the only plausible candidate. Still very unusual. 
  The oven door was actually the glassy window with metallic frame, but the 
glass contained the layer of perforated conducting mesh, with the mesh to keep 
the microwaves inside from escaping, and small perforations to make it 
transparent in the optical range.
  Moses Fayngold,
NJIT